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Jul 1, 2024
Before the last episode, I thought I was finally done with Kimetsu no Yaiba. Do not take this to mean that I loved the last episode, because I did not. It was simply another droplet of the things I like about the series, after the absolutely famine-inducing drought that was the rest of the season. And now I am on the hook to watch the continuation. Again. This is something Kimetsu no Yaiba does, repeatedly, and I cannot help but feel there is something abusive about it. Being at or below the line of acceptability for a long time, then when you are about to
...
leave, then and only then, giving you something good, and you are back in line for more. I don't think I like that.
As my feelings on this season are inextricably linked to what I think of the rest of the series, I suppose I will give short summaries of that, as a kind of background.
The first season I liked, but not without reservations. The story was simple and far from fresh, but it worked. Some of the humor segments were... forced? Weird? Not funny, anyway, and they made a couple of characters way less impactful. But yeah, over all I liked it.
Mugen Ressha-hen was pretty much as good, except the comedic timing was worse. I also really liked Rengoku.
Yuukaku-hen was largely a disappointment. I still sort of enjoyed it, but I really disliked Uzui, and at this point, the issues that had been there all along started bleeding through the cracks in the shiny facade. The lack of character development made it feel more and more stagnant, and everything became dumber and dumber. I'm still happy I watched it, and there were a couple of really good scenes, but at that point I could see where this was going. Downwards.
Then we have Katanakaji no Sato-hen. Oh, boy. This one sort of jumped the shark, for me. I didn't like Kanroji, and I didn't like her stupid weapon. Uzui's weapon was also stupid, but this one I actually find intellectually insulting. What's the point in there being a difference between demons and demon slayers if anything goes, either way? Was not the point that the demons are more powerful, but their nature of not working together is what keeps the balance of power as it is? I know the demon slayers have done plenty of supernatural things before this, but this is, for some reason, the point where I could no longer suspend my disbelief. I also did not like the demons (they sucked as much as their cg effects), and with everything else making me upset, I became unable to keep Tanjirou's internal monologue from wearing on my nerves like a rusty cheese grater. The fancy, flashy finale also did nothing for me, though this was perhaps because of everything that preceded it. The only things I really liked were that one episode about Tokitou, because Tanjirou did not get to shout at his legs to move, or whatever, and Haganezuka. That guy is great. Over all I did not hate Katanakaji no Sato-hen, though it might sound like it, but it was a close call whether I would watch the next season or not.
And that brings us to Hashira Geiko-hen. Here we go.
What are the things I like about Kimetsu no Yaiba? The cool action scenes, especially the emotionally charged ones. The few flashes of good character writing, unfortunately usually found in flashbacks. Tanjirou's relation to his mostly dead family, and his reason for fighting. Cool demons doing wacky shit.
Now then, what happens if we take away all that for the majority of a season, and just have a marathon of shallow character interactions with all the Hashira and tons of faceless goons who are only there to point out how amazing Tanjirou is? Nothing good. Of course, I understand why, mechanically, this part is here. It's so a lot of them can die in the final fight, or at least to manufacture stakes so you care when they almost die. It's a way of, without anything actually happening, pointing out that, yes, they all still exist.
Now, this could be... well, I hesitate to say fine, but it might not be hateful. Unless, of course, all of the things you dislike are still there. Especially the now very common segments of deformed "comedy". I did not like those. In all honesty, there are a couple of good moments, but they are drowned in a sea of rusty, dirty, rabies-contaminated cheese graters.
But, I hear you say, what about the last episode? Did you not say something almost, sort of, nearly positive about it?
Here's the thing, right? The last episode is flashy, most of it is well made, and I did like it. But, and hear me out here, production values aside, it's not really anything special. And the Kibutsuji walk (you'll know it when you see it) does not work for me. That scene is set up so it reinforces what you already think of Kibutsuji, and as an antagonist, I have always thought him serviceable, but never impressive. That scene felt like a waste of time.
Also, as an aside, this arc is supposed to be about the Hashira teaching and training others, so why are they all so horribly terrible teachers? Funnily enough, I think the only one who was any good at all is Kanroji, and she still can not escape from being a deformed bit character. I thought Urokodaki was an awful teacher in the first season, but that was probably supposed to be funny, so I didn't really think too much about it. But now I sort of have to wonder if this is what the original author thinks teaching is. Are Japanese schools even more terrible than I thought?
Whatever. Let's run through this in a more categorical summary kind of way.
Story: Before the last episode, there is not much of one.
Characters: They are static, and interactions feel stilted. The only one I really liked is Himejima (though his weapon is also stupid).
Art and animation: Good in the last episode, but before that it's a mixed bag.
Sound and music: It's pretty good.
Voice acting: Technically good, but held back by the script.
In the end, I will give Kimetsu no Yaiba: Hashira Geiko-hen a 5/10 score. It might just be the sunk-cost fallacy coming into play, but I did not hate this thing enough to stop watching, so I have to believe it is worth something. On the other hand, I would also not recommend it to anyone. Watch at your own peril.
Thanks for reading, and have an above 5/10 day.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jun 13, 2024
Dungeon meshi, ah, dungeon meshi.
Looking at it, you may be deceived into thinking it's just a vapid cooking anime with fantasy theming. We have certainly had those before, but let me tell you, this is a different beast entirely, and damn is it tasty. And funny. And heartwarming. And, at times, really quite disturbing. That last one is also a good thing, trust me.
The thing that makes this story different from other food anime, a genre I generally don't find much joy in, is that it's not just self-insert food catharsis, or whatever you should call that, with a bit of fluff of varying quality
...
attached to it. This story has something to say about food outside of how delicious it is. As to what that something is, I shall let the anime speak for itself. It is better if you do not know. Just think of it as a sweet and silly story of a group of friends getting to know each other through adventure and questionable cuisine, and let the other stuff sneak up on you. It'll be fine. Promise.
Food and theming aside, one thing I really like about this anime is that it does not skimp on the world building. It does not rely on the viewer's familiarity with certain tropes to at all function. It does use some tropes, of course, but they are not used as an excuse or a substitute for actually writing a coherent world. And, critically, it does not feel the need to fall back on crutches like video game stuff or reincarnation nonsense, and is just actual, honest fantasy. Bit of a rarity, these days. Everything about it speaks of confidence, and in my opinion it is well earned.
The characters are whimsical and odd, and really quite lovely. There is something to be said for a story that lets its characters be themselves to their fullest extent, without shying away from implications or weirdness.
The story has a single, clear red thread that everything centers around, and is never very complicated, but this works well. Its strength comes from different character motivations and the excellent way the individual events tie into world building and plot.
I don't generally notice animation quality, and I have no remarks, either good or bad. The art is great, and remains so until the end. The music is not anything that will leave your jaw on the floor, but it fits the whole perfectly, and enhances the experience quite a bit. Voice acting is actually pretty damn great. No complaints.
Normally, I do not write positive reviews. It may say something less than favorable about me, but praise and expressed positivity do not really come naturally to me. And yet, here I am, writing this. This review may be stilted, stunted and forced, but the fact that I even felt compelled to write it at all may be the best compliment I can give Dungeon Meshi.
So, did I, over all, like Dungeon Meshi? Yes. Yes I did. I will not say that this is the best anime ever made, nor will I claim it is for everyone, but personally I can find no excuse not to give this a 10.
Thanks for reading, and have a great day.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Mar 30, 2024
Solo Leveling is an intellectually lazy, self-important and morbidly edgy hack job.
No, really, hear me out, here. This anime is power fantasy, nearly pure and unadulterated. Is this a bad thing? Yes, yes it is. Calling entirely pure power fantasy a story would be like saying a packet of white sugar is soda. To continue the comparison, expecting a story and watching this thing would be like expecting soda and instead getting that syrup stuff you mix with water to use in a sodastream. I'm sure someone out there could chug a glass of the stuff and be happy about it, but that someone sure
...
is not me.
Now, I'm sure you don't need an explanation of what a power fantasy is, but any kind of synopsis of this anime is going to read like one. Our protagonist, whatever his name is, starts out as apparently the weakest "hunter" in all of the world, then a thing happens, and suddenly he becomes all unique and strong and stuff. The story, if such it can be called, is evidently his path towards becoming the strongest. And how does he do this? Why, through convenient plot contrivances, of course. But, more on that later.
You may note that this is not much of a synopsis, but it's actually everything you need to know. There are details, of course, that some people would likely think of as spoilers, though they are so inconsequential I cannot bring myself to agree. It won't mention many of them. There is sort of a B plot, as well, but it mostly serves to contrast our protagonist, and at no point did I find myself caring enough to actually remember what it's about.
I have said this is power fantasy, and this means that what the story does is to emotionally manipulate you with feelings of inferiority, unfairness and the catharsis of the protagonist proving to the world that they are better than anyone else. An element of power fantasy in a better story than this can be done well, but this is pretty much just power fantasy with some aesthetics (more on those later) sprinkled on top. Meaning, if our protagonist was just strong, that would feel vapid even to the people who scored this dreck 8 or higher. So he can't just be strong, he has to be superior in other ways, too. This is where the wish fulfillment comes in. Not that it's done well.
It is completely naked for all the world to see, but at the same time, it seems to be there only out of obligation. The protagonist's oh-so-special powers make him suddenly tall and ripped, because of course, and every woman who sees him gets immediately wet, because of course, but this show is not about relationships or love. It just satisfies the obligation to point out that the bland protagonist is now randomly desirable, and then does nothing with it. Of course, it's not just that every woman suddenly finds his sexually desirable. For one reason or another, everyone suddenly wants a piece of him. But of course, he is too cool and edgy to play their games. Ugh.
Now for the aesthetics. It's like a video game. No, really, that's all. They haven't done anything interesting with this concept. It's just like a video game because the target demographic knows what that is, so the writer could get away with extreme laziness, using dumb shorthand instead of having to come up with anything original at all. Lovely.
In terms of characters, there is only really one that matters: The protagonist himself. All the rest are just there to make him look good, anyway. But, well, he doesn't. This may make it sound like I hate him, but I don't. He is too vapid to hate. I won't say he has no personality, but it is not even compelling enough to dislike. Maybe enough to be slightly annoyed at, though. His singular bit of character growth is that he learns to be angry when life is unfair, which is fine and all, but then we have to suffer through his inner monologue sounding like a teenager ODing on edginess for the rest of the show.
Then there is the action. Oh, dear, the action. I would say that it, at least, is alright, but that's just because this anime got a way higher budget than it deserved. It is the epitome of a polished turd, and a very good example of why the saying says you can't.
If our protagonist is bland when interacting with other characters, then in combat, he is dumb. The action is flashy as all hell, and as far as I can tell, nicely choreographed, but he makes the wrong choice what feels like 9/10 times, and then makes it through by the skin of his teeth through convenient luck, sheer brute force and a lot of angsty screaming. What do you mean the thing has big glowing weak spots? Obviously the right thing to do is to hit it where it has the most armour, then complain that it's hard. This should not be a pattern, but it is. I can only assume the original writer was aware their writing was dumb, and made their protagonist not invest in Intelligence as an excuse. And boy, did he not.
And now, the convenient plot contrivances. The problem is that our protagonist (I am not looking up his name at this point) does not earn anything. Sure, he screams, fights and nearly dies a lot, but everything he gains is something he is given because of the game-like stuff, something no one else can get no matter the effort, and none of the fights seem to be solved with any personal skill. Given the anime, I think it is fair to compare his progress to the progress of someone in an actual video game who, instead of learning the attack patterns of the boss and trying until they get it right, just opens the real money store and buys a sword that is statistically astronomically superior, and onehits the boss, then struts around like they're hot shit. Oh, hey, our protagonist does something very much like that, as well. Fun. I guess this thing was not written in South Korea for nothing.
The contrivances are not just a thing in fights, though. To illustrate this, I will bring up the protagonist's mother. She is not a character. She has no impact on the story, other than to serve as a goal for the protagonist, a completely external motivation to use as an excuse for all the screaming and the fighting. Neither the bland protagonist nor his pointless sister ever expresses anything about memories or feelings or anything associated to her. She is in fact only there because the author knows it's sad when parents are sick. She is a plot device utterly devoid of characteristics other than being the protagonist's mother, so, someone he can be showed wanting to save without having to "waste" time giving a better reason why.
She's in some kind of magical coma, and the protagonist has been throwing his weak-ass body into the dungeon grinder all this time to pay for her treatment. Cause he's just such a good guy, you know? And then, wow, would you look at that? He uses a gacha box (Because it's like a game, see? See? It's so clever!), and just randomly gets a key to a place that apparently contains a thing that can cure any illness. What an amazing coincidence, right? But he needs to be strong to get the thing, so it's a reason for him to get stronger, so he can do his edgy fighting for a reason that makes him good! Wow! Clever!
And that's the worst part. Despite the dumb power fantasy, the stupid, hackneyed aesthetic, and the near total vapidity of everything in this damned show, it through and through takes itself with complete, bloody seriousness. Never, even once, does it acknowledge how stupid any of it is. It is so far up its own ass it can smell toothpaste, and it makes me angry.
I guess that's enough angry ranting for now, though. To summarize, I did not like Solo Leveling. If you just want dumb action schlock, I guess you could do worse than this, but there is stuff out there where the action is both flashy and well written. I wouldn't bother with this thing if I were you.
Thanks for reading, and have a good day, yeah?
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Dec 30, 2023
A Somewhat Improper Review of Jujutsu Kaisen 2nd Season
***Heavy spoilers ahead. Beware.***
Pretty much everything about this season is what I would categorize as average. The art, the animation, the music, etc. All of it is pretty normal, and mostly just there. Even the story is, for the most part, just meh. 5/10, the lot of it. The same can really be said for the greater part of the first season, but it had some things to elevate it. Its sort of silly tone mellowed out the edginess, and the average bits served as a suitable stage for the interactions of a fun cast of characters.
...
It even managed some good drama. Well, season two decided that was enough of that. I could say things about fights dragging on for too long, or lacking character development, or missed opportunities, but even with those things, I would still have given it a pass, and sort of enjoyed it. There is, however, one thing that drags it, as a whole, down from average to bad.
Imagine, if you will, that Boku no Hero Academia releases its final season, and for some reason decides to spend half of its runtime on killing off one member of Class 1-A every episode, just for cheap thrills. Would you like that? Well, perhaps the more pertinent question is this: Would that be good writing? I'd argue that no, no it would not.
Now, you may argue that Jujutsu Kaisen is of a more mature tone, or whatever, and that characters being impermanent is part of its charm, and I would sort of agree with you on that, but there comes a point of diminishing returns. You see, when an author kills a character, they are not just making a turn in the story. They are also killing all the emotional investment the viewer had in that character. A little bit of this, now and then, is fine or even good. If your story has themes of death and loss, then character deaths, perhaps especially the ones that feel pointless, can be used very effectively. If, that is, you don't overdo it.
If you, as the viewer, know that the author has a tendency to off well-established characters with no sensitivity or restraint, if you know that every character you see is more than likely to be killed for cheap thrills, then the question is this: Why should you care?
To illustrate this point I will make the comparison to an infinitely worse show by the name of Akame ga Kill. That show is bad, almost in every possible way. It is cheap, disgusting schlock, but I watched it in a time when I had more patience with such. There are many contributing factors as to why I stopped watching that thing before the end, but do you know what the main reason was? It got beyond obvious, even to the more naive me of back then, that all the characters were going to die. Now, Akame ga Kill is also bad at character development, but the fact that all the characters were clearly nothing more than walking gore receptacles meant that I had no reason to care about them, and even if their development suddenly got many degrees better, this would still have been true. And here is the crucial part: Because I did not care about the characters, I had no reason to care about the nonsensical world they live, or rather die, in.
The world of Jujutsu Kaisen makes way more sense, from a logical standpoint, but nothing about it is really interesting. The same goes for the themes in this show. They are passable, but you can't really claim they are profound in any way. Then there are the fights, I guess. I'm sort of lukewarm on the fights, and again, the only reason to care about them is because the characters doing the fighting are interesting, as, if all I cared about was the pretty lights on the screen, I would just go bang my head against a porch light like all the other moths. It all comes back to the characters, and if they are just slightly more well made gore piñatas, why should I care about any of this? What is even left to get invested in?
The answer, if you have not gotten the picture by now, starts with 'n' and ends with 'othing'.
***Once again, heavy spoilers ahead. Seriously, if you think surprises are enough to make a story good, just stop reading now.***
I would argue that some level of plot armour, given you are skilled enough to sort of hide it from your audience, is a good thing. If you have to torture your characters, then there are way more interesting ways than just making their friends drop dead after randomly losing all their combat sensibilities in a total brain fart.
So yeah, Kugisaki was the final straw for me.
To reiterate, I am not upset about the very concept of character death. Nanami was my favorite character, hands down, and while his death upset me, I could accept that. It sort of served a narrative purpose, and while it made me sad, it did not make me stop caring.
Then Kugisaki just dropped like a marionette with her strings cut. And why was she killed? Narratively, so that Itadori can have a very temporary emotional breakdown, but that's not really the reason, is it? She was killed to make us hate the villain, a villain that has been nothing but sad and sort of gross for a long time, now. A villain who has the charisma of a wet noodle. That's the worst part: It didn't even make me hate Mahito. To the very end, that guy was only ever annoying, and for the sake of some totally flopped emotional catharsis when he finally, at long, long last died (and they couldn't even let Itadori finish him off), we lost Kugisaki, a reasonably well-established character that I quite liked, who died in a completely pointless way. What an absolute waste. And you know, even if they do bring her back, like they hinted might be possible, I would just be waiting for the next time the author decides it's convenient to make her croak, so even if she lives, my investment in her is still dead. I am still disinvested. I still do not care.
I kept watching after Kugisaki forgot how to dodge, but really, I was just looking at the screen. Empty eyes, staring at the colours. Banging my head against that porch light.
Now, let us go back to the mental exercise at the top of the review. I have not read any BHA manga, but I find that scenario to be, hm, somewhat unlikely. But here's the thing: I would still almost prefer that over continuing to watch JJK, because while killing a lot of characters in the end fight is sort of cheap, if it is the end fight I at least don't have to live with the emotional abuse of knowing that however much I may like any future characters, they still amount to nothing but expendable dramatic death scenes to the author.
You may think this is not much of a review, and you might be right to think so, but I have given you the reason why I no longer care about Jujutsu Kaisen, and what else can I tell you? Because of the problem I have at least tried to express, I just have no reason to care about any of the things you usually talk in-depth about in a review. All I can really tell you is that I don't want to have my investment torn down and just barely rebuilt over and over again.
So I won't. Whenever the third season, or the next movie, or whatever, of this show airs, I will not be watching it.
Thanks for reading, and have a good day.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Sep 22, 2022
I am displeased. Completely besides the expectations I had for this based on how much I like the series, this movie is just not good. There might be some good things in it. I have seen some people say some good things about the animation, but I am not picky enough to even notice that unless it's truly awful or exceptionally good. This is neither.
Point is, I don't have the energy to think through this objectively, so what follows is a list of complaints I needed to get out of my system. Hope you find them helpful and/or entertaining.
First and worst, all of the character
...
building scenes sort of felt like excuses. Like instead of a story, it's a list of reasons for why the protagonist is the way he is, a row of "decisive moments" without anything in between. This leads to the audience understanding what there is to understand about the protagonist, but we do not get to know him. There is just no emotional investment. It doesn't help that Okkotsu Yuta for the most part has all the personality of damp tissue paper, and since they skipped over his first several months of time at the school, we also have no idea why his classmates suddenly like him, making their friendship feel like a contrived act rather than natural.
Then he goes insane, sprouts a bunch of new powers, and has a breakdown about not knowing if the villain is in the right, even though the villain has made it very clear that he wants to kill quite possibly all normal people, and Okkotsu's entire motivation for being a jujutsu sorcerer is that he doesn't want people to get hurt. Sigh.
This movie also seems to forget everything about the specifics of people's powers. Nanami is my favorite character in the series, and superficially his fight is cool, but the time-based pact? Forgotten. In the series, him taking off his necktie is a badass moment. Here it is just a thing he does. Of course, he is essentially just a short cutaway callback, so they felt the need to show off everything he does in fights in a very short amount of time. This is not a good thing. Neither is the rest of the pandering with characters from the series that do not matter to the story of the movie.
The only vaguely interesting character interactions are entirely reiterations of things we have already seen in the series. Does this mean the movie is not made for people who have seen the series? No, since without having watched the series, this movie makes very little sense, and is, quite frankly, not good enough for anyone to care at all.
Another thing is that they don't seem to trust the dialogue to convey what is going on, and they instead resort to cheap solutions, like the bad guy's face scrunching up in an expression of evil so stereotypical it actually hurts to watch. It feels like the director thinks you're an idiot, like you could not possibly understand even slight subtlety.
At one point, a villain uses that cursed weapon that looks like three short, red staves connected by chains. I don't know what that kind of weapon is called, but I do remember what it was capable of in the series. Here? It doesn't seem like anything special. It's just there to be something we recognize. A lot in this movie is just that and nothing else: Something we recognize.
The music might not be particularly bad, in of itself, but it is very poorly used. Most of the time it doesn't feel like part of the scenes, and is effectively just background noise completely separated from what is going on, to stop things from being too quiet.
I could find more things to say, but I just want to be done with this now. Over all, watching this movie has made me severely displeased, and I do not recommend it.
Now that I've gotten all that off my chest, I will pretend this movie never existed and move on with my life. Have a good day, eh?
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Dec 22, 2021
***Mostly No Spoiler Review***
Sekai Saikou no Ansatsusha, Isekai Kizoku ni Tensei suru
Creepy, And Not in a Good Way
This anime suffers from a crisis of identity almost to the point of
...
split personality. It wants to be too many things, but none of them work well with each other. It tries to be slice of life, lighthearted comedy, harem, psychological, dark, power fantasy, action, political, proper fantasy, romance drama and more, but the entire thing is like a jigsaw-puzzle completed by forcefully hammering together disparate pieces from several different puzzles. It has too many themes, but does not commit to or fully explore any of them. The result is a shallow-feeling anime that gives you constant tonal whiplash, like when most of an episode is spent on vacuous slice of life, then suddenly, bam! A couple of ridiculously scantily clad girls torturing a man for some reason.
Speaking of. The girls. I don't know about you, but me, I don't think it's ok to sexually objectify children just because you made the in of itself questionable choice of depicting them as having like a third of their body weight consist of tits. And also, just over and over stating that the age at which one is considered adult is lower in that world does not, in fact, make it any more ok. We judge things based on our own values, not those of others. There are several other issues of similar nature that I do not feel like talking about, but they all add to the constant sense of unsettling creepiness. Over all, this anime's approach to sexuality just feels gross, like it was written by one of those disgusting people calling themselves "pickup artists".
Then there is the magic system. It is very poorly conceived. For some reason, saying some words backwards makes magic happen. Annoying, and dare I say it, lazy. Now, it seems magic can do pretty much anything, so what do you think they choose to use this magic for? Making guns. Yup. They crammed a magic system into this bloated mass of themes, only to use it to make guns. Not even cool magitech guns or anything, just normal guns that they can make out of thin air. But that's not the worst part. There is also the skill system, that they added just to tick the "game-like" box, but even though this system has apparently been giving special abilities to people seemingly always, no one seems to know about it. It was used only as a way for the protagonist to be op, to tick the power fantasy box, and to point out just how powerful this hero the protagonist is supposed to kill is. After that, after the first two episodes, it is completely irrelevant.
Speaking of the hero, well... At this point you may ask why I bothered to watch the whole thing, as I quite clearly dislike it. I like subversion of expectations, is why. I know it's not anything original, but still, I wanted to see what they were going to do with the ostensibly central theme. The supposed core premise. Little did I know that the hero, after the second episode, would not be introduced, relevant or even mentioned in more than passing until the very last episode, where they were unceremoniously crammed in at the very end as nothing but a hook for a second season. Seriously, it's like no one in the world, until after the end credits of the final episode, knows that the hero, or the demon lord they are supposed to fight, even exists. Relying on a second season in order to have any time at all for your advertised central theme is not a good thing. The wait was not even slightly worth it.
The characters have no depth at all. The girls are all dull and pointless, the goddess acts "quirky", or perhaps just inappropriate, and the protagonist's parents are two flavors of creepy. The protagonist himself acts like a machine, like a robot trying to infiltrate human society, which one could perhaps argue is appropriate for the story, but interesting or engaging it is not.
The art is technically well enough made, but the art direction is questionable at best.
The music never quite manages to hit that middle ground between too little and too much. Either it is too little and adds nothing to the scene, or it's too much and takes away any tension the scene might have built.
Over all, watching this anime made me feel unclean and dissatisfied. I do not recommend it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Oct 7, 2021
What follows is something I wrote a while back to post on crunchyroll, but apparently crunchyroll thought it was too long, which is dumb, so I just saved it in a document. I won't rewrite it, other than to fix a spelling error, as I don't remember enough about the anime to do so, and I have no intentions of going back to watch it again. Enjoy the somewhat disgruntled rant.
It annoys me when this happens. I watched up until some point in episode 10, sort of enjoying it, and then it suddenly hit me that I don't like or care about any of these
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people, and I could not make myself keep watching.
The base premise is, while pretty dumb, something that could have been entertaining. The art is decent. The voice acting is pretty good.
But the characters are awful. Below I will detail why. May contain mild spoilers.
Aki Tomoya: The protagonist. I think the story is supposed to be about him going from consumer to creator, and yet he never actually does anything creative. He is weak and indecisive, and, be it his own fault or not, ends up continuously hurting people around him.
Katou Megumi: I do not dislike her. She is quite funny, and certainly not a sort of character you see often. But, her entire personality, her whole character, is based on her playing off of the rest of the cast with retorts. Without them she would be nothing, and I do not like them.
Sawamura Spencer Eriri: While I like the mix of totally innocent and completely rotten, she is a good example why tsundere really are just awful people to deal with, and is generally horrible. She threw the protagonist aside, cast him to the wolves to save her own skin, didn't talk to him for years, and yet expected him to not look at any other girl for that entire time. When challenged on this she refused to apologise because apparently betraying him had made her sad too. That is not a card you are allowed to play. She is not a victim. She is jealous, unreasonable and self centered, and yet the show treats this incident like it's supposed to make her endearing, and apparently people in the comments did think so. To me this is inexplicable, and I strongly dislike her.
Kasumigaoka Utaha: People in the comments called her cute, but either this has to be based on looks alone, or they have some deep seated issues. She is in essence an obsessive, possessive, abusive and perverted stalker. Let's just say that if someone who is not a pretty girl rolled around in and sniffed someone's bed sheets, not even the comment section would have called that cute. Me, I find this character nothing but repulsive and creepy.
Hashima Izumi: As far as I got in the story she was nothing but an annoying trope and a story devise to make Eriri blow up in unjustified jealous rage.
Hyodo Michiru: I stopped watching shortly after she was introduced, but from I could tell she was yet another disrespectful self centered ingrate. The newly introduced character being this way is the catalyst that made me realize I no longer cared.
Hashima Iori: Like his sister, an annoying trope treated as little more than a plot devise. And on a side note, while I don't know if these kids bothered with copyright, stealing the premise and story of a game in development and making it yourself has a certain word attached to it: crime.
So, over all I do not care about any of the characters because they are all the worst, and as I do not care what happens to them, the story is pointless to me. If you only care about a few cheap laughs you may very well enjoy it, but don't expect anything too grand.
Sorry about the rant. Making this review was more for my own benefit than anything else. Thanks for reading :)
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Oct 6, 2021
I'll be brief. This is a self insert anime, where a bland protagonist has girls falling for him left right and center for no reason. Aesthetically it's a soulless SAO clone, and I don't like SAO to begin with.
When I first saw the synopsis, I thought it might be an interesting take on the whole reincarnation thing. It is not. The fact that it's different is a mere technicality, added only to earn pity points for the protagonist, as the story tries to portray him as the underdog who fought his way up from nothing, when in reality he's just using the memories of an
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infinitely more privileged person to get ahead.
Art is ok, but then, if the girls don't look good, then this thing would not even work as self insert, so we couldn't have that.
Avoid this anime. It is either worthless or directly harmful to your intelligence.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Oct 6, 2021
The concept is that a normal guy is summoned to a magical world as a legendary hero, and instead of fighting he chooses to save the country he arrives at through economic reform. Cool. Good so far. This could be a fun concept if it's done right. Of course, it is not.
From the get go, you are greeted by poor comedic timing, like the setup and the payoff of the joke are not quite on the same level. Like one part of a song being slightly off the beat, and not in a good way.
As it turns out, the current king is incompetent, and for
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some reason, quite against human nature, accepts this and steps down, making our protagonist hero the new king.
Now, a bad king can very much ruin a country, but the more you watch, the more you realize that the king was not the exception. He was the rule. The people are so bad at what they do, and have presumably been doing for generations, that they should not only be starving, they should all already be dead. They have an economic system, but none of them seem to know how it works and have to be explicitly told in order to figure it out. And, economics aside, for whatever reason farmers and foresters, and presumably other people, if I bothered to watch further, are so incredibly bad at what they do for a living that they need some inner-city chump from another world to tell them new trees can't grow unless old ones go away to make space.
So the setting is bad, how about the story? How should I know? It never goes anywhere. It keeps giving you hints that feel like they could be the hook for the actual plot, but they never go anywhere. I gave this show five episodes, and that's enough. Even if the story takes off somewhere down the line, it is not worth any more of my close to completely worthless time.
Characters. They exist. I could tell you their roles, like busty elf, or princess/apparent love interest, but as to who they are as people, I really have no clue.
Art is passable but forgettable. I am, however, not very picky about art, and all I really remember about it after the fact is that it didn't outright offend me.
Music is pretty bad. It never really fits the scene, and most of it is, well, elevator music. Voice acting is as bland as the characters. No personality. I remember nothing of the sound effects.
Over all, this is an anime about economy, written by someone who doesn't seem to understand economy. I am quite displeased that I spent time trying to like this thing, and it only took five episodes to make me stop trying. I don't recommend you watch this anime. Only through sheer ignorance of the subject matters could you think it is well written, and even if you manage to ignore all that, there is just nothing in there to enjoy.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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